


Saltwater Chaser

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alcohol Induced Amnesia, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bonding, Drinking, Lonely Bucky, M/M, MerMay, Mermaid Tony Stark, Waking Up Married, sort of soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:16:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24427123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Bucky started to groan then cut himself off when the noise made his head pound. How much had he had last night? It wasn't like him to be this hungover.The soft bed under him definitely wasn't his own, but Bucky was too afraid of what the light he could feel on his eyelids would do to his headache if he opened them. He had vague memories of gorgeous brown eyes and gentle fingers, but his head was still too full of mush to shake out the details. He was dizzier than usual, too, feeling like the bed under him was wafting back and forth at pace with his pounding heartbeat."Nuh," he tried. He rolled his face into the pillow and started to work his eyes open. The room was murky and dark but beams of sun cut through in places. There was a mess of brown hair in view when Bucky finally worked his eyes most of the way open. He smacked his mouth open and closed.It felt… weird.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 27
Kudos: 582
Collections: StarkBucksBingo2020, Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Saltwater Chaser

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written mermaids before but it seemed only right to do MerMay at least once. Thanks to Rise Up Ting Ting Like Glitter for the idea of mixing mermaids and accidental marriage. The alternate title for this was "Waking Up Mermarried" so think of that what you will.
> 
> Huge thank you to betheflame for doing the worldbuilding for me and ashes0909 for beta.
> 
> Bingo squares:  
> Tony Stark Bingo:  
> Card #: 3137 - FestiveFerret  
> Square: S5 - "Waking Up Married"
> 
> StarkBucks:  
> Name: FestiveFerret  
> Square: N2 - "Waking Up Married"

Bucky started to groan then cut himself off when the noise made his head pound. How much had he had last night? It wasn't like him to be this hungover. 

The soft bed under him definitely wasn't his own, but Bucky was too afraid of what the light he could feel on his eyelids would do to his headache if he opened them. He had vague memories of gorgeous brown eyes and gentle fingers, but his head was still too full of mush to shake out the details. He was dizzier than usual, too, feeling like the bed under him was wafting back and forth at pace with his pounding heartbeat.

"Nuh," he tried. He rolled his face into the pillow and started to work his eyes open. The room was murky and dark but beams of sun cut through in places. There was a mess of brown hair in view when Bucky finally worked his eyes most of the way open. He smacked his mouth open and closed. 

It felt… weird.

Everything felt weird. Was he dreaming? Even after blinking, Bucky couldn't quite see the man beside him in bed clearly, and gravity didn't seem to have its normal hold on him. Bucky tried to sit up and tumbled sideways instead, the air around him bizarrely weighty. 

Because it wasn't air.

It was water.

Bucky screamed, and he could _hear it_ as his hair swirled around his face in an inelegant fan. He spluttered - somehow _breathing -_ and this had to be a dream, right? "This is a dream, right?" he gasped, and there was movement beside him.

A hand brushed his hair away and wow. That face, he remembered. Big, brown eyes, soft and bright, took up more of the face than they had a legal right to. A soft smirk curled up between lines of carefully trimmed facial hair. "Feels like it, don't it?" he said, and Bucky remembered more. 

"Tony."

"Yup. That's me. You feeling okay?"

"Obviously not. Why am I dreaming about being underwater?"

"You're not dreaming."

"Okay, sure."

"Do you not remember last night?" Tony asked, face crumpling into concern.

"Only bits and pieces," Bucky confessed. _Wake up, it's time to wake up._ Breathing underwater was starting to get deeply freaky, but every time Bucky focused on it too much, it just felt like breathing air. 

"Oh." Tony's face fell. "Well… I didn't tell anyone. Don't really have anyone to tell, anyway. So if you, you know… wanted to take it back…" Tony sighed. "Kinda liked the legs, though."

This dream was hitting the part where everything stopped making any sense at all. That was usually right before he woke up. Any minute now…

"Take what back?" Bucky couldn't help asking. 

"The bonding. Think you guys call it marriage, though." Tony wound his fingers together. "When you meet the person you're meant to be with forever. That's married, right?"

Bucky blinked, feeling the odd sensation of his eyelashes wafting through the water. "Uh, sort of. What? Wait? Are you suggesting we got married last night? How? We're not in Vegas."

Tony reached towards Bucky's chest, which made the sheet fall away from his waist. Below his belly button where legs should be, instead, Tony's skin melted into shiny scales, glittering red and gold in the patches of sunlight that pooled on the bed. 

Bucky flinched back violently. _Wake up, wake up._ This was the part where he usually woke up. Mermaids weren't real. Tony wasn't real. This wasn't real. But Bucky's panic drew him back and away, tumbling off the bed, water swirling the sheets up into a mini tornado. Bucky's foot caught, and he kicked out hard. He swam wildly, not sure where he was going, but he found a door to the little house they were in. He wrenched the door open and was faced with open ocean. 

But above him was sky. That was what he needed: air. Then he'd wake up and everything would be okay. He kicked hard, moving through the water more easily than he usually did, and the glittering surface drew closer and closer. He was cutting through on an angle so the ocean floor rose up to meet him as he swam, and when he finally reached the surface, he was close enough to the beach to stand up. 

There was a heart-stopping moment when Bucky was worried his lungs wouldn't remember how to draw air instead of water and he'd be stuck in the ocean forever, but when he broke through the surface and sucked in, the air replaced the water easily. He coughed twice and then he was breathing normally, albeit harder than usual. He flopped up on the beach and turned his face to the sky.

He still wasn't waking up. 

The grit of the beach was too real under his hands, too familiar, and in his dreams, his left arm was never the damaged mess it was - it was always whole and unblemished. But when he twisted his elbow up, he could see the scars that webbed their way up to his shoulder where a chunk of his bicep was missing. 

"What the fuck is going on?" Bucky asked the ocean, but it didn't reply.

He looked down, registering that he was sitting on the beach, apparently in nothing but his boxer briefs, at eight-thirty in the morning, but honestly, no one around here would notice or care. Of all the places to not wake up from a dream where you were mostly naked in public, the beach was a good place for it.

There was a new weight against his chest, so Bucky looked down and realized his dog tags were gone. Not gone - replaced, with a necklace. From a simple cord hung a beautiful blue stone, so bright it nearly glowed. It had clearly been worked into a flat cylinder by hand, and a web of wire decorated the outside and attached it to the cord. 

A small splash drew Bucky's focus back out to the water. About twenty feet away, he could see a head poking out of the water, dark hair slicked back, but Bucky could still remember how it felt running through his fingers. Memories started to pour in, like whiskey into a glass.

Tony's hand went to his neck, still not saying anything, not moving closer, his gesture a mirror of where Bucky was still gripping the rock. A cloud shifted, light broke through, and Bucky could see: Tony was wearing his missing dog tags.

**

_**Eleven hours ago...**_

"Hit me, Lori." Bucky tapped a finger on the bar.

The bartender sidled over and eyed him up. "Looking to get wasted tonight, Bucky?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Cause you are not a lightweight and mama needs a new pair of shoes." She grinned.

"Yeah, go on then. Heat up the credit card. You can start charging me for the good shit when I'm too plastered to tell the difference." 

Lori laughed and refilled Bucky's glass. A few minutes later, a basket of fries appeared in front of him. "At least have something to throw up later."

"Thanks, doll."

Bucky watched the ballgame out of the corner of his eye, picking his way through the fries and ordering three more drinks before they were finished. It was true, it took a lot to get Bucky drunk. He blamed the army for doing permanent damage to his liver (and his arm, though that was a different story) but giving him the tolerance of a man eight times his size. 

The door chimed and Bucky dropped his eyes from the TV screen to the man who had just walked in. Shit.

Bucky had kind of thought that part of him had died a long time ago, but… wow. The man had fluffy, dark brown hair with sunglasses pushed up in it, huge, brown anime eyes, and a goatee that made him look a little older than he clearly was. Though he was probably only a few years younger than Bucky, his lean, lithe, handsome youth made Bucky immediately feel old and broken, and he winced away from the initial flush of attraction that had so caught him off-guard.

But before he could drown that uncomfortable web of feelings in the remaining Jack at the bottom of his glass, the guy by the door looked his way and their eyes met. To Bucky's surprise, the guy flicked his eyes up and down in an obvious check-out, then met Bucky's gaze again and smiled softly. On pure instinct, Bucky gave a little nod towards the stool next to him and the man's smile broadened.

He popped up on the stool beside Bucky. "Thanks," he said, a little breathlessly.

"No problem." Bucky looked him up and down. God, he was really pretty. "Haven't seen you around here before. And not much changes in this neck of the woods."

"Yeah, I'm from outside of town." He smiled and there was an edge of something cheeky there. "Tony."

"Bucky."

"So you live in the area?" Tony waved Lori down and ordered an apple martini. 

"Yeah. Just moved here six months ago. Got a place down by the beach."

Tony's eyes brightened. "I love the beach. Don't you love the ocean?"

Bucky shrugged. "Guess so. It's peaceful. You here alone?"

"Mhm. I'm… I'm on vacation, sort of? My family does this thing where every kid has to go off and explore on their own for a bit, meet people, that sort of thing."

Bucky narrowed his eyes at him. "You… uh... What is it? Amish?"

Tony laughed. "Oh, no. Maybe sort of similar though, if that makes it make more sense to you."

"Sounds like a cult or something."

Tony laughed again, his eyes dancing. He sipped at his drink, flicking his eyes up towards Bucky over the edge of his glass. "So you - um - or do you…" Tony stuttered. "Shit, I'm usually smoother than this."

Bucky quirked an eyebrow in his direction. "Yeah, well," he drawled. "I'm usually drunker than this, so smooth isn't normally necessary. You trying to smooth talk me, Tony?" Bucky couldn't help the hint of disbelief that wormed its way into his voice. It wasn't like he couldn't score, he could, but it usually involved some effort on his part. Effort he hadn't really had the motivation to put into it for a while. 

"Sure am." Tony sipped his drink again, oozing soft confidence in a way that made Bucky's heart stutter.

"Let's get a booth, then."

They slid into the same side of one of the small booths in the dark back of the bar with their drinks. Tony had moved onto his second cocktail, a whiskey sour.

Bucky nodded towards the glass. "Bit of a sharp contrast to an appletini," he teased.

But Tony nodded enthusiastically. "I want a chance to try them all."

"Not allowed to drink back home?"

Tony hummed. "Allowed isn't really the issue. So what do you do?"

"Army. Retired. Purple heart. Now I just…" Bucky finished with a shrug. _Keep breathing,_ didn't seem like an appropriate answer for a first date. If that was even what this was.

Conversation with Tony was like playing ping-pong with an octopus. He bounced relentlessly all over the place, also managing to work details of his life out of Bucky that he'd never shared with anyone before. He found himself, three drinks later, confessing how lonely he was, but how hard it was to make new connections after leaving the army. Tony never made him feel like he'd shared too much, leaning in as he spoke, eyes wide and bright and all of his immense focus lighting Bucky up from the inside out.

The several drinks were lighting him up too.

Tony worked his way through the cocktail list, shifting closer and closer towards Bucky with every drained glass. Bucky's focus narrowed too, gluing itself to Tony's lips, his voice, the heat of his thigh pressed tightly against Bucky's. 

Their first kiss was an inevitable falling into each other. Tony leaned in - or maybe Bucky leaned in - it was hazy and easy and exactly the right thing to do. Bucky had never felt like touching someone was more steady than being apart, but holding Tony against him settled a crooked strut deep in his foundation. Tony's arms curled around Bucky's neck, fingertips dragging up through his hair. Bucky drew Tony into his lap, electricity lighting up everywhere their skin touched. 

"Want to come back to my place?" Tony muttered against Bucky's lips.

"Yeah," Bucky breathed. "I do."

Bucky waved at Lori on the way out - she'd charge everything to his card on file and followed Tony outside and into a cab.

There was probably something else in the middle there.

Then there was skin and lips and teeth and sighs and gasps and moans. 

There were whispered words that Bucky couldn't make out the shape of but loved the sound of. 

There was a bright blue rock slipped around his neck, a heavy weight over his heart.

And then there was nothing.

**

Bucky watched Tony float out among the waves for a few minutes, then he stood and waded out until he could sit waist deep in the water. He dropped his eyes to the necklace, rubbing his thumb over the edge of the rock and when he looked back up, Tony was right next to him. 

"Hi," Tony said, nerves shaking his voice. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"No, I'm… I'm sorry I yelled. I was… startled."

Tony closed his hand around the dog tags. "You want these back." It wasn't a question.

"Wait. Tell me about this thing. About the bonding?"

Tony settled in the sand, his hand still holding the dog tags tightly. The scales on his tail flashed like gemstones in the shallow water, and Bucky had to resist the urge to reach out and run his hand over them. "Well, it's how my kind finds a partner. A life partner. We meet the person we're supposed to be with and we just… know. So we exchange heart-tokens and then we're bonded. And then we - uh -" Tony grinned. "Consummate the bond. And then after, as long as the bond isn't rejected, both partners can travel either world."

Bucky rolled that through his mind. "That's how I could breathe underwater?"

Tony nodded. 

"And you… you could -?"

Tony smiled. "I could already breathe on land. But I can walk. Like last night. For now." He gazed out towards the horizon, then he reached up and slipped the dog tags off his neck. He held his hand out towards Bucky, the chain pooled in his palm.

Bucky covered Tony's hand with his, folding his fingers back over the dog tags. He slid his hand down to Tony's wrist and tugged gently. Tony turned to him, eyes wide, but let himself be pulled, sliding to his stomach between Bucky's knees. His tail flapped twice, driving him up against Bucky's chest, and Bucky caught him around the waist, letting one hand slide down to brush over the smooth slide of Tony's scales. "Keep them," Bucky husked.

Tony's eyes went impossibly larger. "Really?"

"Yeah, I - I want to see your world. But maybe a slightly gentler introduction? Or at the very least, a sober one?"

Tony laughed. "Yeah, I can manage that. I want to see your world too, more of it."

Bucky cupped Tony's face and drew him in, pressing a soft, salty kiss to his lips. "I need to take a shower and drink a gallon of freshwater. Come home with me?"

Tony nodded, and Bucky took both his hands and pulled up. As the air hit Tony's tail, it melted away into two legs and he stepped up on the beach next to Bucky. "We're going to need to get you some pants."

Tony laughed and winked. "Thought we were taking a shower?" he asked, too innocently.

Bucky gathered him in his arms and started driving him up the beach towards his cottage. "I have a feeling we're just going to end up getting dirty again, but yeah, why not?" The sun was hot on his back, the sand soft under his feet, and Tony perfectly right in his arms as they made their way home.


End file.
